---

This is the final chapter of a series of six stories.

---

Tab Clifton sat next to his old high school buddy at the bar of the Lucky Lady Lounge.  He’d heard Kelly Kerr had been back in town for a while, but it had taken a while for the two to get together.  They’d gone through the niceties friends say when they haven’t seen each other in a while.  Each had filled the other in on relatives they knew, common friends from high school, and the more mundane parts of what had taken place in the last year.

I see you’re still driving the old Ford Sunliner,” Tab said.

Kelly chuckled.  “Yeah.  Still got the old convertible.”

The silence that followed was uncomfortable and awkward.  The two had been best friends in high school, so Tab didn’t really feel that bad for pressing on with the discussion that he knew was bound to take place between the two of them at some point.

“So what the hell happened up in Fort Worth?” he asked.

“It’s a long story, man.”  Kelly took another long suck out of the beer bottle in front of him, then another one to empty it.  He held it up and tilted it back and forth so Hank would know to bring him another one.  “A long story.”

“We ain’t goin’ anywhere.”  Tab said.

Kelly wasn’t really even sure where to start.  But he figured Six Flags was the best place.  He told Tab about his dad leaving and never being heard from again, information Tad was already aware of.  Fort Stockton is a small town.

He went on to explain moving up to Grand Prairie and going to work with his cousin at the amusement park and living with his aunt and uncle.

“I’ve heard Six Flags is pretty cool.  Kind of like a small Disneyland.  Good rides, hot girls, entertaining shows, and shit like that,” Tab said.

“The rides were pretty cool.  The girls that worked there were ripe for pickin’.  The shows were special.”  That was as good a place to start as any, Kelly figured.  “I worked the Happy Motoring attraction.  Little fiberglass sports cars on a concrete road that guests could drive themselves.”  Kelly went on to tell Tab about the scantily clad women who came on to him with their kid right there beside them.  He explained what some of the other rides were.  He spent more time than needed telling his buddy about Darlene from the Crazy Horse Saloon.  He might have even embellished that part of the story a little bit.

After a while, Tab cut right to the chase.  “So how did you end up married?  I still don’t get that part.”

Kelly told him about having a crush on Mindy McKinney, going to her shows at the Southern Palace, waiting for her by the stage entrance door after work.  He took great pains in describing how beautiful she looked in her southern belle costumes and what a gorgeous voice she had.  “When she and Duke Denison sang Johnny Reb and Diamond Deb, I swear to God there wasn’t a dry eye in the house,” Kelly explained to his friend.  “You’d swear the two of them were in love and struggling with the fact that he came back from Gettysburg half the man he’d been before the war.”

While Tab appreciated the production value of what Kelly was describing, he still didn’t understand how that led to his friend’s short, ill-fated marriage.  Then Kelly told him about the encounter at Skull Island.  He didn’t leave out a single detail.  He even recalled a few he’d forgotten, or put out of his mind at one point.

“Good gawd almighty!  Right there in the middle of the amusement park?”  Tab was incredulous.

“I know.  Right?”  Kelly responded.  “I thought the Happy Motoring ride was a good way to spend the summer!  Little did I know just how great Six Flags could be!”  Kelly drained another Lone Star Longneck.  “Of course I didn’t know that would be the one and only time I’d ever make love to Mindy McKinney, even though I married her.”

Hank brought another round of beers over for the two old friends.  Tab sat back and waited for Kelly to tell the rest of the story at his own pace.

Eventually Kelly explained that Mindy never felt comfortable having sex till after the baby was born.  “And of course, at that point there was no thought of ever having sex again, anyway,” he said.  He talked about working for General Motors in Arlington in an accounting position that Mr. McKinney arranged for him.  “Everyone else in that office had a college degree and knew what they were doing.  I jumped in and learned as fast as I could, but they all also knew that the only reason I got the job was the fact that I had knocked up Medford McKinney’s only daughter.  It was a no win situation.”

“What was it like living in a huge city, being married to a wealthy girl, driving a brand new car, and having the best of everything?” Tab asked.

“Surreal.”  Kelly thought about the question for a while.  “In fact, it was just like being on the Happy Motoring ride at Six Flags.  The scenery was beautiful, the road was smooth.  But the reality of it was that someone else had control of the car.  There were guards in place to make sure it never left the road, and somebody else was monitoring the speed.  It looked great but in no way was what life really was.”

Tab thought about that and realized how tough it must have actually been on his high school buddy, even though it sounded like a sweet deal.

“So you finally walked away from the entire thing?”  Tab asked.

“Sort of.”  Kelly drained another beer so he could finish the story.

“We were having brunch at the club with Mindy’s parents when she went into labor.  It was a mad dash to get to the hospital.  They wheeled her into delivery and her parents and I settled in the waiting room.  It was quite a while before we heard anything, but eventually a nurse came out and said Mindy was struggling to deliver the baby.  It was a large child and had presented itself breach.”  Kelly was looking down at the bar.  Tab waited for him to go on.

“It seemed like an hour or better went by while we waited.  Maybe more.”  Kelly took a long sip of the beer in front of him.  “Eventually, she came in and said they had taken the baby by Caesarean Section.  She said Mindy was still out.  I asked to see the baby.  The nurse was hesitant.  Mr. McKinney was insistent.  She took us back to the nursery.  I’m not sure which of us was more surprised as we looked in through the window.”

Tab wasn’t sure if Kelly was going to go on, but he damn well needed to hear the end of the story.  He waited till Kelly was ready to finish it.  Finally Kelly picked up where he’d left off.

“The baby was the spitting image of Boyce Beaumont.” Kelly said.  “There was no question he had fathered the child.”

“How could you be so sure?” Tab asked.

“Well, Boyce is black.”  Kelly said.  Tab’s jaw nearly hit the bar.

“It all made sense at that point.  Why she’d come to me that night at the end of my shift.  She already knew she was pregnant.  She needed someone to take responsibility who would pass muster with her father.  I wasn’t ideal, but I was who available.  She didn’t have time to be selective.”

“And that’s why she didn’t really want to have sex with you?” Tab asked.

“I suppose.  The one time was all she wanted to get what she needed.  That would make everything plausible.  I was naive enough to think it would all be okay after the baby was born.” Kelly answered. “Then we would really enjoy married life. Truth is, I suspect she and Boyce continued their ‘relationship’ even after we were married. While I was counting beans on new Buicks being built in Arlington, she was banging Boyce on the new furniture her father had bought us.”

Tab was quiet for a minute. “Didn’t she realize it would be obvious once she had the child?” He asked.

“I suppose she was rolling the dice and hoping it wouldn’t be as obvious as it was.”  Kelly thought about it for a minute.  “Maybe she never really thought that far ahead and was just buying time.  I dunno.  I never talked to her again.”

“Never?”

“Never.  Mr. McKinney walked me out to his Cadillac in the parking lot of the hospital.  I sat in the passenger seat, he was behind the wheel.  He reached over and pushed the buttons lowering all the windows on the car and he reached into his pocket and pulled out a Viceroy cigarette.  He lit it and quickly analyzed the scenario.”  Kelly finished what would be his last beer.

“And?”

---

---

“We sat in the big Aspen White Coupe DeVille in silence for a few minutes.  I looked around at the push-button AM radio, a power-adjustable front bench seat, and electric windows looking for words that never came.  I stared down at the two-tone white leather and patterned black cloth upholstery in silence.   The old man understood quicker than I did what had actually taken place.  Told me that I had married his daughter under false pretenses.  He apologized for her actions, but made it clear he did not hold me responsible for them.  He said he’d have the marriage annulled and do whatever had to be done for his daughter and the child she’d just delivered.  But not in the prying eyes of the monied masses of Fort Worth.”

“What do you suppose that will be?” Tab asked.

“I suspect she departed for Europe for an extended stay.  Maybe France.  She always talked about Paris.”  Kelly said.  “I’m sure the child was put up for adoption, no questions asked.  Wealthy city folks have a different way of handling problems than the rest of us do.  Anyway, he offered to let me keep the Buick, but assumed I’d want to move back to Fort Stockton.  And by ‘assume’ I mean he made it clear that would be best.  I got a good severance package and letter of recommendation from General Motors.  He kicked in a grand to help with what he called ‘the transition’.  I told him to keep the Buick and I’d keep my old Ford.  I didn’t want to take the cash.  But I did.  Call it payment for services rendered.”

And that’s how Kelly explained his move to Dallas / Fort Worth, his marriage to a girl he adored but who was only using him, and how he looked forward to becoming a father for eight months only to have that dream evaporate in a minute’s time.  For years after that he called 1963 ‘The Year of Happy Motoring’.

“But,” he’d say to friends, “the happiest motoring was driving my old Ford Sunliner convertible back to Fort Stockton in the late spring of 1964.”

---

---